Another anniversary of late summer remembrance and sky blue conversations. Another year of promises never to forget. Another solemn reading of those three thousand names; names slowly fading in resonance next to the names of the Newtown children, the Boston marathon victims, the countless others whose names we have never heard, the ones who are only afforded ink in a police blotter, whose faces have never made it onto television channels or newspaper headlines. The ones whose names we will never know of because they live across oceans, across continental divides, across worlds.

September 11. New York City. My city. The city of a million separate stories, but one of those stories was always mine. I used to avoid the films and the television specials. I used to avoid the memorials and the telethons. I used to avoid the E train. I used to avoid downtown. I used to avoid…